Guiding our way to better health

Maya Adam, MD, is a faculty member in the Pediatrics Department and an expert on global health communication, but her first career was as a professional dancer — and what she learned from her work on the stage is surprisingly useful to her today.

After a decade as a performer, Adam, director of Health Media Innovation at Stanford Medicine and host of the new podcast Health Compass, came away with one overall lesson: “If you can’t engage an audience and keep them in their seats, you’ll never be able to keep their attention long enough to communicate something to them. Stories matter — whether it’s a ballet, a screenplay or a health message,” she said.

Adam weaves good stories into all the educational media she produces: online courses and award-winning animated films on topics related to maternal and child health, nutrition, mental health and disease prevention.

In Stanford Medicine’s new Health Compass podcast, faculty member and health educator Maya Adam interviews experts on health topics featured in Stanford Medicine magazine.

Her latest venture as a podcast host dives into how centenarians live long healthy lives, how AI-powered chatbots might help doctors and patients, and the emerging treatments that bring hope amid a global mental health crisis, among other topics.

Adam discussed her approach as a storyteller and podcast host and what she hopes to bring to listeners.

As host of Health Compass, how do you think about connecting with your guests — and the audience?

The faculty at Stanford Medicine are researchers, physicians, communicators and mentors. But they’re also human beings, driven by some element of their past experiences that took them into their career and propels them forward day after day.

There is nothing more compelling, I think, than hearing someone talk about their past and their passion.

Getting to know these researchers and hearing what brought them to where they are today helps establish trust and helps open our ears and our minds to the science behind their work. When we hear things we relate to — whether it’s how they speak or experiences they’ve had as a child — that humanizing of the expert allows for more effective science communication.

What do you hope people will take away from Health Compass?

Traditionally, learning and education come with a certain amount of hardship and endurance — study for the test, practice the flashcards. That may still be true to some extent, but I think now, especially with the digital transformation of our world, we can start to reduce the amount of grit that’s part of learning and increase the level of delight.

If we can make health communication and health education delightful, we transcend the strict sense of educating or lecturing and instead invite curiosity and an embrace of learning.

What keeps you motivated to find new ways to communicate health and medicine messages to a broad population?

If I can be a part of a cultural shift toward asking the questions that are on most people’s minds and finding answers with experts in their fields who provide clear, reliable and helpful information, that’s when the magic happens.